“We are thrilled to be a part of Intel’s Visual Computing Academic Program and working with the ISTC-VC,” says Peter Raad, founder and executive director of The Guildhall at SMU. “Our Master’s students are creating new worlds through interactive video game development here at SMU. This funding will help us collaborate with Intel and other universities to reach new levels of realism and expand the practical uses for visual computing.”

Intel’s Visual Computing Academic Program was established to accelerate the development of tools and techniques for interactive rendering on highly parallel architectures. The program encourages collaboration between Intel product development teams and elite academic research programs.

“We are excited about the opportunity to work more closely with The Guildhall going forward,” said Intel’s Randi Rost, manager of the Visual Computing Academic Program. “Through this relationship, we will be able to harden, optimize, and polish visual computing research results and incorporate them in game environments. This will provide value to students at the Guildhall, to our visual computing research collaborators, to Intel product development and enabling teams, and ultimately to consumers who use Intel platforms.”

“Having our faculty and students recognized by Intel as key contributors to the future of visual computing is very gratifying. It will also allow us to collaborate with other great minds at Intel and other universities,” Raad adds. “We hope to be announcing winners of this year’s research scholarships and their projects soon.”